


Cause and Effect: A Retching Rhetoric

by hestitant_oath



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Addiction, M/M, Mental Health Issues, although i've lived in the us for three years now so it should be alright, i'll add more tags as they become relevant, so if something feels weird let's blame it on that, standard disclaimer: english is not my first language, this is essentially just a prologue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:54:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26787016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hestitant_oath/pseuds/hestitant_oath
Summary: "Don't believe what you read, or sometimes what you seeBut most of it is true, too true.And are you happy this way? And scalpels bring back this face.Tell the judge that I'm innocent, tell the jury I'm no one at all."-my chemical romance, house of wolves v1A story about recovery and its relentless challenges — and the peace, love, and misdemeanors encountered on the way.
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Cause and Effect: A Retching Rhetoric

"It's not the fall that matters, but who catches you and whether you land the right way up."

~~~

Though his lids were heavy and his gaze unfocused, the bus slowly coming to a stop caught Gerard’s attention. He blinked rapidly a few times as he yawned and looked from side to side in an attempt to stretch out his stiff neck. Pushing at the sleeve of his jacket, his watch revealed that it was three in the morning, which – after a quick calculation – meant they were still five hours away from his destination.

After casting a glance outside the window, Gerard decided the need to stretch his legs overpowered the daunting idea of the freezing cold, and he got up to explore whatever a truck stop in the middle of the darkest nowhere in Upstate New York could potentially offer.

Only the bus driver was awake, every row down the aisle filled with people curled up in some semblance of comfort, tucked away against windows and backpacks as if it were their childhood stuffed animals.

"Oh, hey. Just needed a smoke break and I figured no-one would mind," the driver faked an apologetic smile.

It was freezing for a night in mid-April, but Gerard knew it wasn't cold enough for the smoke that slowly rose from the bus driver's mouth to be his breath. Perhaps he stared too long, because the driver stepped closer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

"Here you go, take one! I know how it feels, man." Gerard pulled out an American Spirit with practiced ease, almost on instinct. Sighing softly, he looked at the white cylinder tucked comfortably between his fingers. "Fuck," he muttered.

"Ah, you need a light? Here, kid." The driver helpfully held out a white lighter, and Gerard took it up to his mouth, gently cupping his hand around the flame as the smoke passed between his lips and down into his lungs. He quickly handed the lighter back with a slight nod before exhaling and following the tendrils of smoke, backlit by the bright blue sign of the truck stop. It looked like they were dancing upwards, like waves towards the clear dark sky. Gerard shivered, unsettled by the grotesque beauty despite its dangers being common knowledge.

"Been a while, huh?" the bus driver interrupts. "Man, this is why I love driving at night. Less likely to get stuck in traffic – more acceptable to stop for a break. Especially on the longer routes! Sometimes I'm scheduled for the Midwest, like Iowa, you know…" Gerard let his attention drift as the bus driver rambled on. "Fuck," he thought, this time silently.

After months in rehab, he felt lightheaded after only a couple of drags, but relished in the way the ash slowly gathered at the cherry, before flickering away in the slight breeze. Once he released the final drag he dropped the butt to the ground, firmly grinding it against the sole of his boot as if he could flatten it out of existence. He sighed one more time, muttered a quick thanks to the driver and avoided eye contact as he stepped back up into the bus.

Back in his seat Gerard quickly checked over his belongings. Well, it was just his backpack, and his sketchbook and marker tucked into the seat pocket in front of him. It seemed unscathed, although he was doubtful anyone would be interested in stealing the little stuff he had; a half empty plastic water bottle, a phone charger (just the chord – it was missing the adapter that should go in the outlet), an extra sweatshirt, and the folder of his release forms and the instructions for the post-rehab exercises that he got from his group-session leader. He pulled out the sweatshirt and tucked it against the window, curling up to it as the bus turned back onto the highway. As he closed his eyes, he wished for sleep, but knew there was little chance for genuine rest. It felt as if his brain was spinning in slow circles in the back of his head, powered by nicotine and an overwhelming sense of freedom.

_Behind his eyelids Gerard dreams of standing at the edge of a big cliff, feeling himself slowly walk towards the never-ending pit. As he steps into nothingness, he feels himself relax into the fall, barely registering the way the wall behind him rushes past before drawing away, leaving him encased in colourless darkness. His imagination fails him, flashes of faces lighting up and disappearing before his dreaming conscious could begin to process who they were and how he was supposed to feel about them. A pale hand. A heap of paper. Concrete. Footsteps. A night light. An alarm. Sand. Wet paint. Dry. Hot. Cold. Down. Shards of glass. Droplets of blood on his fingers. A feeling of falling, of falling, of falling…_

Gerard jerked awake, dream immediately forgotten but heart still beating too fast. The bus has stopped, but after a quick glance outside he saw the busy streets where skyscrapers touched the ground – waiting at a red light in New York City. The complex structures seemed serene as clouds reflected off of their massive windows. It was a jarring contrast to the hundreds of people rushing pastt to places where they were expected, and the thousands who were excitedly standing in their way. He quickly took a shallow breath and held it tensely, as if the incessant machine would stop to take a break with him, like he sorely needed. Between the masses he caught a glimpse of someone who vaguely looked like– no.

The bus coughed awake and kept rolling forward as he slowly let the air flow back out from between his lips, rubbing his palms up and down his thighs and knees. Port Authority slowly slid into view, and he pulled his gaze from the hectic lives outside the window to gather up his untouched sketchpad and showed it down his backpack along with the sweatshirt he'd used as a pillow.

Once again he walked the few steps down and off the bus, stepping aside a couple of feet so other people could pass by, then stopping. He closed his eyes, letting himself feel the ground below his feet. steadying himself between the loud rumbling of the engine behind him, the sound of more busses and cars passing by, his breaths drowned out by the echoes of people chattering with their friends and family and phones

He couldn't stand the thought of the subway, being stuck underneath it all in a metal tube, unable to escape from who knows what, so he decided on walking the ten minutes down to Penn Station.

At the crossing of 37th Gerard ended up next to a dog while waiting for the road to clear. It looked at him with big brown eyes through its unruly off-white fur, and he felt a smile tugging at his lips. His shoulders tensed and his hands clammed up, and the owner quickly pulled the dog along as people bumped into his shoulders trying to get past him. He shook himself out of it, the more sensible part of brain taking over as if it was berating him. "Christ Gerard, freaked out about the idea of your own smile? No wonder you're such a fucking freak." 

It was something he'd talked about a lot in his one-on-one sessions at the rehab centre. This vision he had of himself, how he manifested it into reality.

"The world is so fucked up, though, you have to agree? Who am I to be happy?" he'd said, but no matter how many times the psychiatrist told him they understood, it never got through to them.

"You deserve it," they answered, echoing…no. He wanted to forget about that.

Still, they told him he deserved to be happy, but never seemed to listen when he desperately tried to tell them that deserving it was not the issue. It wasn't about him, not really. It was about the rest of it, the rest of the world.

A woman next to him was leaning on a doorway, arm propped out on a crutch and holding an empty styrofoam cup, eyes pleading as they hooked on to any passer-by who looked like they'd be inclined to drop some coins in. She barely glanced at Gerard.

Once he reached the revolving doors at the facade of Penn Station, he reluctantly walked in, following behind some girl whose icy blonde ponytail seemed way too tight to be comfortable as it swung back and forth with her steps. Gerard's internal timer was ticking – once he reached the ticket machine he recalculated – the next train to Newark was in seven minutes, which meant he'd be back in twenty-eight. The number made his shoulder tense as he tried to flatten a five dollar bill out to feed it to the machine – it seemed too low. Home was uncomfortably close.

Home.

At the rehab info desk he had completely frozen up the day they asked him about his release – ideally they wanted the contact info for someone who would pick him up, but since he had hurriedly shot that down, they made him give an address to ensure he had somewhere to go. In a panic (don't think about him, don't think about him) he had written down the contact information for a friend, well, someone who had actually kept in contact with him after college.

Ray was very nice, they shared a lot of interests yet none of the wrong ones (pills, seedy bars, a habit of staying out too late to go home and instead searching for anywhere to keep drinking), and for the past couple of years they'd hung out once every couple of month. Usually it was marathoning the Star Wars movies on Gerard’s couch the occasional times his hangover was too overwhelming to have another drink without immediately puking his guts out again. Ray had never mentioned it – maybe he didn't know better, maybe he thought the dark heavy bags under Gerard's eyes were genetic rather than from exhaustion, his unfocused eyes were normal…well at that point he might've been right. Still, Gerard had always had a nice time when they hung out, easy conversations weird costumers that had stopped by at Ray's job at Guitar Center and whatever ideas Gerard had been drawing recently.

Ray was nice.

More importantly, Ray was one of the few people whose address Gerard knew outside his family.

He was too overwhelmed at the potential thought that the centre might contact them, so evading that became his main priority. He hadn't actually planned on going to Ray's, but as he put his backpack on and stepped down on the platform at Newark, his avoidance caught up with him. He hadn't actually planned much of anything regarding his release – 90 days seemed endless in the beginning, when he had first stopped. They felt endless as he had lived through them too, day out and day in.

Until yesterday, when he had been made to stand up in front of everyone in group session to receive his chip. Gerard had barely been able to stutter out a thank you, and focused on sitting down rather than the "don't thank me, be proud of your own work"–spiel.

He had managed the travel almost by instinct, one of the support assistants plotting his journey and handing him his itinerary printed on a sheet of paper, carefully timecoded. After all the long discussions about how to re-adjust, no-one had once mentioned what he should do about the feeling thrumming under his skin, the underlying beat constantly questioning "what if I don't want to? What if I want to stay here forever?

Realising he had made his way outside the station without noticing, he found himself stopping again. Not for the first time he cursed himself for having lost his phone back in January. Or maybe he had broken it and decided it would be better off dead and buried wherever he was – who knows? Gerard surely didn't remember. All he knew was that with it, he had lost the memory of all the numbers he had saved, so even the run-down old payphone in the station would be no use.

To Ray's then.

He couldn't remember which bus would take him to Irving, where he had spent a Friday night eating pizza with Ray in…November? As long as he still lived there it shouldn't be that far of a walk. Gerard was pretty sure he just had to follow Springfield Avenue, then he could probably figure it out from there. At least it was morning, it wasn't like he would be robbed or anything. And, Gerard nodded to himself, he could make the ticking timer in his head stop, now that the end was indefinite.

Except for the fact that, of course, with a defined destination it was now more definite than ever.

Gerard's eyes flickered between the brown wooden door and the doorbell system next to it. He got a sudden craving for a cigarette, stronger than it's been in months, but he knows it was mostly because he wanted an excuse to loiter and delay pressing the button.

So he just went for it. Ray lived on the third floor of a triple decker – his name was still on the small sign, so he hadn't moved – and Gerard clenched his jaw and made his therapist proud.

He just has time to consider "what if he doesn't answer? Where the fuck do I go then?", before the small speaker crackled to life.

"Hello?" Gerard felt his hands shaking.

"Hi, Ray…it's Gerard?" His voice was quavering, and for a split second he visualised himself halfway down the street, running

"Oh! Alright," through the speaker it's clear that Ray was shocked, before he schooled his voice back to something neutral and welcoming. "Come on in, then!"

The door hummed as it unlocked, and Gerard reached for the handle by instinct. He had quit, he'd managed to quit, and it took him all he had. There was no quitting now.

He took one last deep breath, before his footsteps echoed alongside croaking wood through the empty stairwell. 

**Author's Note:**

> hey, i hope you enjoyed this. i’m unfortunately not promising any kind of regular upload schedule, because i know myself…honestly this only happened because my landlord was vagueing me, saying he was gonna show some potential new tenants around my apartment sometime between 2-4:30pm, and he’s a disgusting trump supporter with a tendency to wear his mask on his chin so i had to get away from my apartment for a bit. so then this happened…anyway, that’s a tangent. comments are always appreciated! thoughts, ideas, concerns…leave them all below. And yes, this is my first frerard work in almost a decade, and it’s not betaed and i barely even did a read-through, but hey. i’m excited.


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